


Anything to Prove I'm Disloyal

by porterville



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Codependency, Dennis is a little homophobic at one point, Fighting, M/M, Throwing stuff, Underlying mental health issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:31:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9770477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porterville/pseuds/porterville
Summary: You think I'd grow out of this, wouldn't you?Or, Mac's year of realizing things isn't working for Dennis.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written for this fandom for a while but I thought I'd give it a try again. Writing for the gang is really hard for some reason, their characters are very specific. 
> 
> Title is from "Bye Bye Baby" by OK Go, which is, in my opinion, a MacDennis song

Okay, so Mac was gay now. He’d always been gay, Dennis knew that. The whole gang did, but Dennis especially knew. You can’t live with a guy for over two decades and not know something like that. Mac was terrible at covering his tracks, and things had escalated and risen to a crescendo in the past four years in particular, to the point where Dennis was just _angry._ It didn’t matter that Dennis and the gang and _God_ all knew Mac was lying to himself, he was still trying to hide things from him and it made Dennis _hate_ him. But as long as Dennis knew he could keep things under control and unchanged, that hate bubbled just under the surface and stayed there.

Then he came out. Nobody ever expected him to, but he did. Dennis was on high alert that entire week, but things with the gang didn’t change much. They never did, he reminded himself.

All he could busy himself with now was finding a new apartment. Usually they just ignored Dee’s threats to kick them out, but all three of them were starting to agree on how insufferably cramped they were.

Dennis was scouring the internet for apartments with a newfound vigor one evening, surrounded by an uncharacteristic silence.

Mac walked in with a beer. “How’s the search?”

Dennis glared. “Where’s my beer?”

Mac rolled his eyes and sat down. Dennis felt a strange twinge. Mac had been acting annoying all day. If Dennis couldn’t get a handle on this - well, needless to say, he would _have_ to get a handle on this.

“I’m going to need your input here, bro,” Dennis said, gesturing towards the laptop. “It’s slim pickings, though, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah.” Mac was leaning towards him to look at the screen, but he was also scratching his jaw in a nervous way that could only mean he was very close to saying something he didn’t want to. Dennis felt himself grimace.

“What?”

“Uh… maybe when we move out of Dee’s place… I could get my own apartment.” Mac wasn’t looking at him.

Dennis closed the laptop. “Absolutely not.”

It was jarring yet comforting how quickly things devolved into shouting after that. Mac started it, Dennis told himself, which only got him angrier. He thought back to Shmitty letting Mac order his own food, he thought about Mac banging his mom, he thought about Mac feeding him a dead dog - anything to keep this anger going. Anything besides anger would tear him apart.

They were on their feet as much as they could be, standing on the clutter they’d created together. Mac kept asking why, _why_ Dennis was so mad even as he smashed his beer bottle on the floor.

_“Because,_ Mac,” Denis answered, “You’re not doing what you’re supposed to! Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you have to fuck with the balance I’ve been trying to maintain!” He could feel himself losing some of his fire, but couldn’t figure out why, so he pressed on. “God _dammit,_ why couldn’t you have just stayed in the closet?”

Mac’s fists were clenched and his features twisted, but Dennis knew he wasn’t angry anymore. He looked right through him and remembered helplessness and sea water and onions - _I’ve got no fight left._

Dennis didn’t realize their eyes had been locked until Mac broke away. “I’m leaving.”

“Mac, wait-“ But he had already started walking towards the door and shoving on his boots. “Mac!”

“Fuck you,” Mac said under his breath.

“You need me.” His hands were shaking. “You can’t live on your own.” Mac seemed lost for words, and Dennis couldn’t think of any good words to say, but the silence was crushing and he needed to break it to pieces _now._ “Go ahead, Mac. Just _go._ If you want to change everything that’s been working _fine_ for two decades then that’s just _fine_ with me.”

“That’s not-“ Mac was rapidly deflating, standing there with one boot on and mussed up hair. He exhaled. “Dennis, I’m not trying to make you mad. What if I come home with some beefcake and you have to listen to us bang?”

In an alternate universe, where Dennis was a married man living successfully in the suburbs and Mac was a well-adjusted bodyguard who had come out in his mid-twenties, maybe he could’ve been happy for him. Maybe the real reason Dennis was mad was because he should’ve outgrown Mac a long time ago. He hadn’t flourished. _Far be it from me to keep the flower that’s you from flourishing._

“Why do you want things to change?” His voice felt small and ugly but he didn’t care.

Mac shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t. They just are.”

Dennis watched him pull his other boot on and walk out the door. He went to bed soon after, not bothering to pick up the smashed beer bottle, and pretended not to wake up when Mac stumbled home hours later covered in sweat and glitter.


End file.
